Do we really want another 500 years of division between Catholics and Protestants?

[Attejohannes]

I appreciate your explication regarding family lore, Atte.

But it really did not address how it is that you know that the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch are not theopneustos.

If your criterion for including the Gospel of Luke in the canon is because he sat at the feet of an apostle, then you must, by necessity, include the writings of St. Ignatius also, who sat at the feet of an apostle.

Do you see how you cannot make a criterion for a book in the NT that also excludes all of the other ancient Christian texts?

You must appeal to some other criterion.

And that is, if you are honest: you appeal to the authority of the CC to discern this for you.

There is no other way, Atte. No other way.

OK, I take a piece of iron wire and bend you a model (as we say in Finland, when we want to make a thing simple).

Regarding the quarantee of truthfulness and autenthicity, I think the story is very much the same as with any ancient documents. You trust the oldest sources, nearest to the persons and events they describe. Now, let us suppose that a “Gospel” was circulating around starting something like this: “Now it happened to pass during the 5th year of the reign of Nero, the meperor, that John, who was called the Baptist, came out of the wilderness, and appeard to the children of Israel”. There was no need of a special charisma of Holy Spirit (not even actual faith in Christianity, just some understanding of chronology) for a discerning reader to say: “Hey, this is certainly fake, these things happened several decennia earlier”. Or there would be a" Letter" of Paul to Chartagians saying, among other things: “Now, regarding the question of a man keeping several wives, there is no objection, provided that each and everyone will be equally treated”, Then no person with an ordinary intellect would claim the this would be the same Paul who wrote the epistles to Corinthians.

Why not the Ignatian epistles among the Scriptures (although I personally enjoy them immnesely)? They were testimonies of faith, inspirational, inspired even, in a certain different sense than the documents included in the NT. I said previously, the Scriptures proclaim the Good News, the few surviving documents of the post-apostolic generation are testimonies of faith, apologies, etc. Interesting reading, sometimes a bit too allegorical, in the case of Ignatius very moving and pious, but not opening a New Life to the reader. And I do not downplay the intellect of the readers of the second century, they saw the difference, too…

And, as I have pointed out, somehow Catholics seem to think that Luther popped up out of the nowhere, without any background. He acknowledged the Church, believed that it will exist in the world until the end of time, he knew the scholastics, he knew the doctors of the Church, he knew his Aristoteles. He could say - rather imaptiently - to his opponent who started to lecture him of the very elements: “I have known for fifteen years that the nails of the horseshoe are made of iron” He had no problems as accepting the Scriptures as a consensus and testimony of the Early Church. His problem was the 16th century Church.

Coming back to the title of the thread: " Do we really want another 500 years etc… I hope that you will now agree that, yes- if it depends on us humans we will see - whether we want it or not.

By the way, to honor the soon approaching 500 year jubilee (or call it what you want) of reformation, I finish this epistle with a quotation from martin Luther:
“When I preach, then even a seven year old child will understand. But when I and Master Melanchton sit down with a mug of beer and start to talk theology, even God in Heaven is stupefied with our erudition”

 

[PRmerger]

OK, I take a piece of iron wire and bend you a model (as we say in Finland, when we want to make a thing simple).

Why not the Ignatian epistles among the Scriptures (although I personally enjoy them immnesely)? They were testimonies of faith, inspirational, inspired even, in a certain different sense than the documents included in the NT.

So you are saying that you know that it’s not *theopneustos *because it’s different from the documents in the NT?

I hope you see how this is circular, right? “I know what’s inspired because it’s in the NT” and “I know it’s in the NT because it’s inspired”.

That can’t work, Atte. You need to tell me how you know, from reading Ignatius that it’s not inspired.

Have you read Jude, Atte? Is there any way you can read that and know that it’s inspired text, except for the fact that an outside authority told you it was so? :nope:

Please think about this: the ONLY way you can know that Jude, Philemon, 3 John (which, BTW, does not even mention Jesus once!) can be inspired and the letters of Ignatius are not inspired is through…

the authority of the Catholic Church.

[SIGN1]There is no other way.[/SIGN1]

By the way, to honor the soon approaching 500 year jubilee (or call it what you want) of reformation, I finish this epistle with a quotation from martin Luther:
“When I preach, then even a seven year old child will understand. But when I and Master Melanchton sit down with a mug of beer and start to talk theology, even God in Heaven is stupefied with our erudition”

Heh.

NB: Please note: “inspired” in my dialogue with you means: God-breathed, not “it makes me feel good about God”.

 

[7_Sorrows]

i have not read each and every post on this thread so i don’t really know what the majority of opinions are, but i found the topic interesting.
no, i think it is very sad to think of another 500 years of division between Catholics and protestants, but i don’t know what it would take to be able to reverse the split - especially now with so much progressive thought of female pastors and priests and homosexuality and same sex marriage causing so many churches to cave in to social pressure.
i am not even sure how much longer the Catholic church will be able to stand up for what it believes in because of the pressure. in my opionion, the Catholic church is the only church to stand up right now for truth and morality.

 

[PRmerger]

Regarding the quarantee of truthfulness and autenthicity, I think the story is very much the same as with any ancient documents. You trust the oldest sources, nearest to the persons and events they describe. Now, let us suppose that a “Gospel” was circulating around starting something like this: “Now it happened to pass during the 5th year of the reign of Nero, the meperor, that John, who was called the Baptist, came out of the wilderness, and appeard to the children of Israel”. There was no need of a special charisma of Holy Spirit (not even actual faith in Christianity, just some understanding of chronology) for a discerning reader to say: “Hey, this is certainly fake, these things happened several decennia earlier”. Or there would be a" Letter" of Paul to Chartagians saying, among other things: “Now, regarding the question of a man keeping several wives, there is no objection, provided that each and everyone will be equally treated”, Then no person with an ordinary intellect would claim the this would be the same Paul who wrote the epistles to Corinthians.

Ah, so it sounds as if you are saying that the early Christians understood the kerygma through the Oral Tradition, and those texts that conformed to this Oral Sacred Tradition were discerned (by the bishops) to be inspired, and those letters which departed from the Oral Sacred Tradition were excluded, yes?

So we are agreed, then that Sacred Tradition came first?

And then that there were certain individuals (bishops) who discerned for you and me what this canon was?

And that they did this through the charism of infallibility? That is, they were prevented from erring by the Holy Spirit in declaring something to be inspired that was not inspired?

And that this charism of infallibility occurred over numerous centuries? This ability to proclaim a truth of God without error occurred multiple times throughout history: at the Council of Rome in 382, the Church decided upon a canon of 46 Old Testament books and 27 in the New Testament. This decision was affirmed by the councils at Hippo (393), Carthage (397, 419), II Nicea (787), Florence (1442), and Trent (1546).

 

[Attejohannes]

So you are saying that you know that it’s not *theopneustos *because it’s different from the documents in the NT?

I hope you see how this is circular, right? “I know what’s inspired because it’s in the NT” and “I know it’s in the NT because it’s inspired”.

That can’t work, Atte. You need to tell me how you know, from reading Ignatius that it’s not inspired.

Have you read Jude, Atte? Is there any way you can read that and know that it’s inspired text, except for the fact that an outside authority told you it was so? :nope:

Please think about this: the ONLY way you can know that Jude, Philemon, 3 John (which, BTW, does not even mention Jesus once!) can be inspired and the letters of Ignatius are not inspired is through…

the authority of the Catholic Church.

[SIGN1]There is no other way.[/SIGN1]

Heh.

NB: Please note: “inspired” in my dialogue with you means: God-breathed, not “it makes me feel good about God”.

When I say that I regard the Ignatian espistles inspired but not in the same sence as Scriptures, I think that I mad e the same distinction.

Yes, Jude, what about Him?

1. John (now a translation from my Finnish Bible, my English one is not at hand):
   John 3, 7: " For the sake of the name of Christ they have started their journey, and do not receive anything from the heathens" As the whole, a short but powerful exhortation to stay in truth and a warning what happens, if people are blinded by their ambition, even in Church

Philemon: A good Christian teaching exhorting us for the sake of charity even to give up our undisputable rights (St. Paul never questioned slavery as such, a good reminder to those who wish to “save” Christianity by presenting it primary as tool for social justice)

OK. You seem to imply that if I did not invent or deduce something from my own head, then I got it from a tradition. If the argument is at that level, yes, then I got Scriptures as a tradition, as I got my native tongue, as I got Eucleidian geometry, as I believe that a place like, say Los Angeles exist, although I never have been there.

In that sense I of course got the scriptures as a tradition, first from the early centuries to 16th century (when the first Finnish translations were made by reformators), and then up to the day when I got my own, now very torn copy as a present after my first communion. Great tradition.

And then?

 

[PRmerger]

OK. You seem to imply that if I did not invent or deduce something from my own head, then I got it from a tradition. If the argument is at that level, yes, then I got Scriptures as a tradition, as I got my native tongue, as I got Eucleidian geometry, as I believe that a place like, say Los Angeles exist, although I never have been there.

You got it from an authority OUTSIDE of Scripture.

Therefore, you are not Sola Scriptura.

And you believe this authority was infallible, in that you believe this authority was prevented from declaring something inspired that actually was not inspired.

And this acknowledgement is HUGE, Atte. Just HUGE!

TYou are not Sola Scriptura. And you acknowledge that the charism of infallibility exists.

 

[Attejohannes]

Ah, so it sounds as if you are saying that the early Christians understood the kerygma through the Oral Tradition, and those texts that conformed to this Oral Sacred Tradition were discerned (by the bishops) to be inspired, and those letters which departed from the Oral Sacred Tradition were excluded, yes?

So we are agreed, then that Sacred Tradition came first?

And then that there were certain individuals (bishops) who discerned for you and me what this canon was?

And that they did this through the charism of infallibility? That is, they were prevented from erring by the Holy Spirit in declaring something to be inspired that was not inspired?

And that this charism of infallibility occurred over numerous centuries? This ability to proclaim a truth of God without error occurred multiple times throughout history: at the Council of Rome in 382, the Church decided upon a canon of 46 Old Testament books and 27 in the New Testament. This decision was affirmed by the councils at Hippo (393), Carthage (397, 419), II Nicea (787), Florence (1442), and Trent (1546).

The process was dialectic. Of course quite in the beginning there were no texts, but the Pauline epistles were early written documents (as you undoubtedly know). We do not know, how early the hypothetical Q-source for the synoptics was, but quite soon the oral tradition was being compared with the written testimony and vise versa. The written documents became all the more important the more the eye-wittnesses of the apostolic generation started to pass away.

The non canonical “gospels”, visions, gnostic texts, are rather easy to discern from the canonical text, and again there does not appear a need of a specific charisma, quite an ordinary literacy suffices to say that the Chritianity presented in the Canon is a different religion from that depicted in extracanonical sources. Some individual books of NT took a longer time to accept (the fact that Luther discusses in some length in his introductory passages to each of the books of NT, explaining the pros and cons). Yes, of course I believe that it was a Divine providence that willed that we have the Scriptures we have and that they were accepted.

From that premise I would then have to accept, let us say, immaculate conception, as a conseqental conclusion. Is that waht you mean? Because they did not (tank God) err with the Scriptures by mid 4 th century, they did not err in mid 19th century?

 

[Attejohannes]

You got it from an authority OUTSIDE of Scripture.

Therefore, you are not Sola Scriptura.

And you believe this authority was infallible, in that you believe this authority was prevented from declaring something inspired that actually was not inspired.

And this acknowledgement is HUGE, Atte. Just HUGE!

TYou are not Sola Scriptura. And you acknowledge that the charism of infallibility exists.

Do not jump to conclusions. I believe that God wanted us to have just these Scriptures, and therefore we have just these Scriptures. No bench of bishops dictated Him, what kind of Scriptures we ought to have.

And I believe that when we start to get grand ideas of our charisms of infallibility, then some corrective actions are called. Martin Luther happened to be one of them. What ever you think of him otherwise, also the Catholic Church was not the same after the Reformation. It might still think that it had the monopoly of truth, but it could not anymore exercise it by brute force. Therefore we can have this kind of discussion.

 

[Attejohannes]

You got it from an authority OUTSIDE of Scripture.

Therefore, you are not Sola Scriptura.

And you believe this authority was infallible, in that you believe this authority was prevented from declaring something inspired that actually was not inspired.

And this acknowledgement is HUGE, Atte. Just HUGE!

TYou are not Sola Scriptura. And you acknowledge that the charism of infallibility exists.

Well, the midnight is approaching. I have a long day tomorrow. As Luther advised I pray the Lord to send his good angel to watch me over the night and close trustfully my eyes.

Heretically yours

Atte

 

[PRmerger]

Do not jump to conclusions. I believe that God wanted us to have just these Scriptures, and therefore we have just these Scriptures. No bench of bishops dictated Him, what kind of Scriptures we ought to have.

Of course! No bishops ever dictate to God. As if! :whacky:

But I think you see now that you defer to the authority of the CC each and every time you quote from the NT as inspired, and read the letters of Ignatius as theological treatises.

That’s the ONLY way you know–through the authority of the Catholic Church.

And to defer to this Church is to acknowledge that she made no errors.

 

[PRmerger]

Well, the midnight is approaching. I have a long day tomorrow. As Luther advised I pray the Lord to send his good angel to watch me over the night and close trustfully my eyes.

Heretically yours

Atte

'night 'night.

You are not a heretic. I think, in fact, you are coming around quite nicely.

 

[Attejohannes]

i have not read each and every post on this thread so i don’t really know what the majority of opinions are, but i found the topic interesting.
no, i think it is very sad to think of another 500 years of division between Catholics and protestants, but i don’t know what it would take to be able to reverse the split - especially now with so much progressive thought of female pastors and priests and homosexuality and same sex marriage causing so many churches to cave in to social pressure.
i am not even sure how much longer the Catholic church will be able to stand up for what it believes in because of the pressure. in my opionion, the Catholic church is the only church to stand up right now for truth and morality.

I sympathize and share the sorrow. I just hink that too many mutual anathemas have been proclaimed over the past 500 years that a merely human effort can mend the drift. I do not expect and even wish any Catholic, who is comfortable (and even maybe not so comfortable) in his/her faith to convert. But although I at intellectual level can understand the Catholic viewpoint, I simply cannot believe the doctrins in my heart, and that is that.

I have tried in thse discussions somehow to crystallize our different mentalities and ways of thinking. To put it very simply: To a Catholic the relationship to God depends of his/her realtionship to Church. To a Protestant the relationship to his/her church or denominion depends of his/her relationship to God.

As a Catholic you probably do not much care about my prayers, you get them anyway.

 

[PRmerger]

To a Catholic the relationship to God depends of his/her realtionship to Church. To a Protestant the relationship to his/her church or denominion depends of his/her relationship to God.

There is no dichotomy for the Catholic between the Church and her head, Christ.

And for Protestants who worship Christ apart from His Body, the Church, you are worshipping a disembodied Head, with no way to communicate His Word.

You need His Body (the Church) for that.

As a Catholic you probably do not much care about my prayers, you get them anyway.

On the contrary, friend, I take all the prayers I can get. And the prayers of a righteous man avails much–James 5:16

(And you know that is inspired, Atte, because the Catholic bishops infallibly discerned this for you. )

 

[PRmerger]

And I believe that when we start to get grand ideas of our charisms of infallibility, then some corrective actions are called.

But are we now agreed, friend, that you will never now proclaim the illogical, “No man can be infallible”? (At least, it is illogical for any Christian who accepts the NT canon as inspired to proclaim this).

You have acknowledged that God can (and did) guide His Church to infallibly declare the canon of Scripture–on multiple occasions–using bishops, yes?

 

[october_baby]

Well, I feel that I have to explain a bit what I meant when I said that the dissensions and split serve in the end the purposes of God.

The unity that was upheld in the (western) Christendom in the 16th century was a forced unity. People were not Catholic Christians by choice but because neither the Church or State gave them any other possiblity. Jail and stake were the only alternatives for dissenters. And I do not think that these were the means that Christ intended His church to be maintained in the world. I believe that this was a capital institutional SIN of the Church, much worse that the human fallibility and lapses of the individual members in the hierarchy.

The freedom of religion was one (not immediate) fruits of the Reformation. After all the religious wars and mutual oppression, the European states, one after the other, came to accept that people differing in their Confession live as their good citizens.

Now the churches cannot impose thmselves on people. People become and stay Christians out of conviction. And that is a blessing. If an unity can be achieved (which I doubt, at least by human means alone), then it is unity by conviction, not by inquisition.

One of the “fruits” of the reformation is +30,000 protestant denominations, I can’t say this is part of God’s plan.

 

[october_baby]

Yes. I think the error the Church leaders made was this: in trying to eliminate heresy, the Church leaders attacked heretics.

Now the modern Christian world is making the opposite error: in trying to love heretics, it has embraced heresy.

 

[PRmerger]

One of the “fruits” of the reformation is +30,000 protestant denominations, I can’t say this is part of God’s plan.

Probably more than that, because no one can count all of these little denominations unto themselves, popping up on every street corner.

 

[Porknpie]

Probably more than that, because no one can count all of these little denominations unto themselves, **popping up **on every street corner.

I couldn’t resist. I knew google wouldn’t let me down. An inflatable…traveling…pop up Church. I wonder what denomination it is?

 

[batman1973]

I couldn’t resist. I knew google wouldn’t let me down. An inflatable…traveling…pop up Church. I wonder what denomination it is?

First Baptist Bounce House?

 

[PRmerger]

I couldn’t resist. I knew google wouldn’t let me down. An inflatable…traveling…pop up Church. I wonder what denomination it is?

Heh.

I hope the Holy Spirit doesn’t appear there because if the Spirit rains down on this church there’s going to be a literal explosion.